But right before walking out, she stops and nods at Phoenix’s jacket hanging on the hook.
"Are you happy?" she looks at me.
“Yes.”
Mom gives me a small smile before reaching out and touching my face. She brushes her hand against my cheek for a brief second, the way she would check for a fever when I was a kid.
Then she drops her hand and goes.
36
JADE
Mom's car disappears around the corner at seven-fifteen and I stand in the doorway for another minute after she's gone.
The evening air smells like jasmine and cut grass from the neighbor's yard. Down the road a dog barks twice. I watch the empty street and think about my mother's hand against my cheek.
I'm on the back deck when Phoenix's car pulls into the drive at eight. I hear the engine cut then his footsteps on the path leading to the back. He comes out onto the deck and neither of us speaks for a moment.
The marine layer that sits offshore most evenings has stayed back, pushed out by whatever wind came through this afternoon, and the Pacific is visible all the way to the horizon, dark blue going darker in the late light. It almost never looks like this. Most nights there's a wall of gray eating the distance. Tonight, there's just water, open and unobstructed, going further than I can see.
"Your mother gone?" Phoenix asks.
"Just left.”
He looks at the water. "How was it?"
“Good.”
He nods, putting his hand on the rail beside mine and we stand there for a moment in the quiet with the water in front of us. It’s the first time in months that I've stood out here and not felt the weight of everything pressing against me. No Richard. No indictment. No lawyers counting down timelines. It’s just Phoenix beside me and the jasmine coming over the fence.
“Let’s go swimming,"I say.
He looks at me. "Now?"
"Right now. Before it gets totally dark."
He looks at the water again, taking a beat. “It’s going to be really cold."
"That's the point," I say.
We go downthe deck steps to the beach with the blanket I grab from the storage chest — the old one, salt-stiffened, the one that lives out here.
The sand is still warm from the day, that deep warmth that lingers in the surface hours after the sun has gone. I drop the blanket above the tide line and we keep walking toward the water.
There are a few people on the beach—a couple with a dog at the far end, an older man reading on a low chair, a group of people our age twenty meters down with a small fire going in a pit. We pass the group on our way to the water. One of them, a guy in a red shirt and an easy smile, looks at me as we pass. It’s not a leer, but a look that lingers half a second too long.
Just then Phoenix's hand finds the small of my back. He doesn’t grab me or pull me closer. Instead, he places it there tomake a statement. The guy in the red shirt reads it the same way I do and looks away and Phoenix's hand stays there until we reach the waterline.
I glance up at Phoenix, but he stares at the dark water, keeping his expression neutral.
The water is cold.Not viciously cold. September is usually the warmest month, but it’s cold enough that I gasp when it hits my waist.
“Jesus,” Phoenix gasps and I laugh out loud.
He looks at me. "It's freezing."
"It's not freezing. It's refreshing."
